June 16, 2015

ABQ minimum wage dispute headed to trial

The Albuquerque Journalreported Tuesday that a drawn out argument between a former employee and a restaurant owner over minimum wage is headed to trial.

What originated as a fight by Kevin O’Leary, a former employee of the Route 66 Malt Shop in the Nob Hill neighborhood of Albuquerque, to be paid Albuquerque’s minimum wage is now shaping up to be suit about retaliation.

O’Leary originally brought attention to the restaurant when he said he was forced to agree to work for a lower wage than Albuquerque’s mandated minimum wage. Albuquerque’s minimum wage was increased in 2013 after a vote in late 2012.

O’Leary told news media he was asked to sign an agreement to accept $2.13 an hour as opposed to $3.83, the minimum wage at the time for tipped employees.

According to the Journal, O’Leary told the restaurant’s owner three years ago that many customers left because of order delays and management later retaliated against him.

From the Albuquerque Journal on Tuesday:

O’Leary alleged in a February 2013 lawsuit that the day the customers walked out, he was told to take a week off without pay, and that when he returned, his hours were cut from 35 a week to four. A week later, Szeman, the general manager, presented a document to employees they were required to sign saying they would accept less than the legally required wage, the lawsuit claims.

Originally, when O’Leary brought his concerns to the City of Albuquerque, the city attorney and the Mayor said it was up to individuals to take legal action.

After public outcry after the mayor Richard Berry administration said they would not enforce the minimum wage law in the case of a restaurant owner who admitted to having his employees sign illegal contracts.

City Attorney David Tourek made the announcement on Tuesday.

The case involves Route 66 Malt Shop, where owner Eric Szeman had his employees sign illegal contracts to say he would continue paying the old minimum wage. Such illegal contracts have no legal weight.

Szeman will now faces civil penalties for refusing to follow the law.

Besides an assistant city attorney, O’Leary is also being represented by a private firm, while restaurant has retained its own representation. It’s still unclear exactly when a trial will start.

Related

More About

The Bernalillo County Board of Commissioners voted on Tuesday against adding a public finance proposal to the November general election ballot. The proposal, known as Democracy Dollars, would provide vouchers to citizens, who could apply them to publicly-financed candidates of their choice.

At a rally organized by a far-right, pro-Trump organization, the ralliers were outnumbered five-to-one from counterprotesters. The rally largely went off without any incident beyond the two groups shouting and chanting at each other.
The protest was organized as a “Freedom First Flag Wave” by Bradley Burris, a New Mexico resident who hosted a Proud Boys podcast earlier this year.

A Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful released a gun plan Friday that includes support for an assault weapons ban and universal and expanded background checks. New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver said she also supports enacting red flag laws and raising the minimum age to purchase a rifle to 21.
“This epidemic has claimed the lives of too many innocent Americans--far too many of them children--and it is well beyond time for Congress to act to protect Americans from the scourge of gun violence,” Toulouse Oliver said in her gun safety plan.

Friday afternoon, Albuquerque middle and high school students took over a corner of the University of New Mexico's Johnson Field—and then a busy intersection nearby—to demand action on climate change. Alyssa Ruiz from Sandia High School told the crowd that while the United States plans to spend more than a billion dollars building a wall along the U.S./Mexico border, the Trump administration's proposed budget for 2020 cuts spending on renewable energy.

With a stroke of her pen, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham set into motion New Mexico’s first minimum wage increase in a decade. Lujan Grisham signed SB 437 into law Monday afternoon, bumping the state’s minimum wage from $7.50 per hour to $9.00 per hour by the beginning of 2020.

Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller this week told city police officers to stop the city’s DWI vehicle seizure program. Under existing ordinance, the police department can impound vehicles after DWI arrests, but before the driver has been convicted.